area were the Young Patriot leaders, local stars in their twenties who were dressed like American hip-hop singers: gold chains, tracksuits, floppy hats. Their scowling bodyguards sat behind them, wearing muscle shirts and mirror glasses; a few were armed with Kalashnikov ri- fles. Sitting quietly and pathetically in the back rows were the neighborhood elders. In the traditional hierarchy of M- rican villages, the old are elaborately de- ferred to by the young. Here the elders had no role other than to applaud while the Young Patriots took turns swaggering and jigging out on the speaker's platform and the loudspeakers blasted reggae or zouglou, the homegrown pop music of the movement. A favorite anthem, by a zouglou group called the Bastards, was "Sacrificed Generation": They say students make too much trouble They say students go on strike too much At the start they took away our scholarships They made us pay for rooms and meal tickets Students are poor. . . When we present our demands They answer us with tear gas. . . The big brothers are angry The old fathers don't want to get out of the way! Each speaker tried to outdo the last in scabrous wit and extremist views, before boogying back to the tent to touch fists with the others, like an N.B.A. star re- turning to the bench. At another Young Patriot event, I had heard a heavyset demagogue pronounce the true "axis of evil" to be Liberia, Burkina F aso, and France, and then declare, with malicious irony, "Yeah, I'm Jean-Marie Le Pen!" Meanwhile, at night, immigrants were being hounded from their homes under the pretext that they were supporting the rebels, entire shantytowns had been bull- dozed, and the corpses of opposition pol- iticians were turning up at dawn in re- mote comers of the city: Everyone knew that paramilitary death squads were at work, though no one could prove the rumor that they were directed by the President's wife, Simone, an evangelical Christian with a taste for inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims, immigrants, and whites. This spring, President Gbagbo, under pressure from France, agreed to include rebel ministers in a new cabinet. In July, the civil war was declared to be over. But late last month rebels started boycotting :g ' -"" . __ ____ . _:C .. . It -- ;..--- ;-' -" ,"" . - . ":i;_ - -- - - -- --- . ., : - - .. .ff ,,-j ..... , /I., "L-::" - -- " ",- - " ' / '"",i -.... , f .. '.J*í ( (' '.' , -.':fiX ., . '.'- : · . . "4' ' .--::.: .., f ." .:c-.. \. / " --- nY"" _:";0 (Þ' { , .;;, -.- .^ ;,: i " -);>':- - :" l I! .. :S' :, :; <:'; '\\ " , \' I .;', , 1: J ( ' \ _ r ii,' 'Ý " , I" ---. :. '. \ ',:,';,- : t. ØJ . '. J I ' " J' ' \: \'" ,, If" .- i(( : / 1 _,..... Ii i > ,I L' ' \\ 'i " , ' Î # , . .\i::; ;1 ') '/ ,'J : I ,; ;, / / ' / ",' \ ,,}' I, ' // <' ) ';.; - :. :. ':(f( , ../" , JQ. \"", , i ' .. ( St" ' '\ ./ I/{(( '" ' , . 11 \ ; " \. ,-. - '"t . I, " ,, ..' t. ,... ' " ' " , :::- ' I . ...'.' , . ,. þ' l =' . ..' , , .-, '.':\ .: .'" (::.-, ,'." - !Iio.. ---::-.., , " '. .'. ', ", j \ '\ /,. '\ ",. !-- -.----.. , . f . 1 \.. ,,/-, \ t / I ...,",- = ;: ', ./, .l ;-i . \ II' !" llf ' 1 ; /' J · to'.' " - .y; . :Þ or; , \- \ :- " - meetings of the unity government, and threatened to resume the war. This was fine with the leaders of the Young Patri- ots, who had thrived during the civil war, making regular appearances on televi- sion; many had become national celebri- ties. These young men have no desire to return to the ranks of the eternal students and the jobless street-comer orators. Blé Goudé arrived very late, in a con- vo "They're coming! They're coming! I see Charles!" the m.c. informed the crowd. By the time Blé Goudé, his fig- ure lean and tense, made his way with an armed bodyguard to the tent, and then out across the open dirt to the speaker's stand, the moon was rising over Port-Bouët. Blé Goudé, the son of a peasant from President Gbagbo's region, rose to prominence in the nineties, when he be- came a leader of the national student movement. The group clashed frequently with police during the chaotic years fol- lowing Houphouët- Boigny's death, and Blé Goudé was sent to prison many times. At the end of that decade, when the student movement split into two fac- tions, the university campus became the scene of a small war. Blé Goudé, whose side won, earned the nickname Ma- tC. i;..'- , . :tI'/ / chete. (He never received a degree, how- ever, though for years he pretended that he had.) The leader of the losing side was Guillaume Soro, an overweight, soft- spoken student from the north. Soro is now the political leader of a major rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast. The country's destiny is being shaped by former students who have never held a Job. Blé Goudé took the speaker's plat- form. He was wearing baggy green army pants, a tank top, an Adidas pull- over tied around his waist, and a black baseball cap with the bill turned up- the imitation-gangsta style of the Young Patriots. But he didn't strut; his hungry, liquid eyes and knowing smile projected the self-containment of a leader. As he spoke, darkness fell, and gradually he became a disembodied voice. He didn't shout, unlike the others; his was a deep, calm voice. Blé Goudé denied press reports that he was getting rich off his leadership of the Young Patriot movement. "They don't understand that some people fight for their beliefs," he said. "They think everyone can be bought. They say my belly is getting bigger." Shrieks of laugh- ter rose from the crowd as he patted his ,\ \ "God damn it, Wålter-I'm not even indicted yetI"